I had been editing a document for a client. I added some comments in the margin, as always – but when my client opened it and when I re-opened it, to my horror and his, all of the text boxes containing the comments had gone TINY and unreadable. It looked like this:
It apparently happens if you’re working with a document originally created in an older version of Word which doesn’t have the requisite Styles set up for comment boxes. You then work on it in Word 2007 or Word 2010 (this solution works for both!) and the horror happens …
It took me and Matthew longer than it should have to work out what to do, as there didn’t seem to be an easily found solution if you searched for one online – so as an aide memoire for me, for next time it happens, and as a public service for anyone else trying to work out what to do … here’s what you do (now edited to add screen shots).
What to do if your comment boxes go tiny in Word documents:
Let’s look at what the full horror looks like first of all:
First of all: don’t panic! The comments will have typically gone into Times at 1 point. But there is a way to make them readable again.
Open the document. Don’t highlight anything. Don’t put the cursor into a comment box.
Now you can do one of two things. Either hit Control + Alt + Shift + s all at the same time, or make sure you’re in the Home tab and click on the little tiny arrow at the bottom right of the Styles menu – this will bring up the full Styles dialogue box.
Using either of these methods, you will bring up the Styles dialogue box.
This looks like a very useful dialogue box, but for our purposes you need to ignore all of it except the three buttons at the bottom. Click on the rightmost button: Manage Styles to bring up yet another dialogue box.
We’re not there yet: the sort order shows as Recommended – but you need to click on the down arrow to change it to Alphabetical:
Once it’s in alphabetical order, it’s relatively easy to find Balloon Text (note: not Comment text) and you will see that it then confirms how you have your text set up (blue circle). Click the Modify button …
Now you can change your font (which will probably have defaulted to Times) and font size (which will probably have defaulted to 1). You’ll notice lots of other options (blue circle) to change the spacing, etc. – I don’t usually worry about changing those, but this is where they are if you want them – and of course you use this menu to change the styles on headings, normal text, etc., too. Press the OK button, and carry on pressing OK buttons until you get back to your document.
And there it is, all changed:
Save document
Want even more information on customising your comment boxes? Read this article full of everything you would ever want to know!
Related topics: What to do if your comment boxes start running from right to left
Changing the language in your comment balloons
This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …
Do let me know if this has helped you, saved your bacon, etc. – and do share with the buttons at the bottom of this article.
Patricia Fogarty
December 5, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Thanks so much for this! Want to note that, using Word 2007 on a PC, I needed to highlight the whole doc before the rest of the steps would “take.” But once I made that one adjustment, my bacon was indeed saved. So glad you were there with this advice.
Liz at Libro
December 6, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Thank you very much for taking the time to comment, and I’m so pleased I was able to help. Having to highlight it all didn’t happen to me, but that’s well worth knowing for other people who might be in the same boat!
Al
January 22, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Many thanks for this, massive help. I had this problem while working in Word 2010 so didn’t have to highlight the body text; worked fine as you described. [Also managed fine without screenshots; I wouldn't worry about them for the extra effort required!]
Thanks again, very much appreciated; the tiny comment boxes were really starting to annoy me!
Liz at Libro
January 22, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Dear Al, I’m so happy I was able to help (and it’s good to have feedback about Word 2010, too!). And thanks for the info about the screenshots: I have been adding them to my more recent posts about more basic aspects of Word, but I think that if someone’s working with comment boxes, then they are probably OK with just following the instructions. Thank you for taking the time to comment, as it’s good to know I’m helping!
Kerrie
June 8, 2012 at 1:29 am
This was a great help just now for Word 2007. Thanks!
Liz at Libro
June 8, 2012 at 2:41 am
You’re welcome! Thank you for taking the time to let me know!
trish
July 3, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Huge help!! Thanks for posting this!
Liz at Libro
July 3, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Hi Trish, so glad I could help, and thanks so much for posting that I had helped you!
Lisa Neff
July 21, 2012 at 6:27 pm
I was recommended to come here by Katherine Moore O’Klopf (an EFA colleague), and I managed to fix the problem with some tweaks (I’m working in Word 2003). “Control + Alt + Shift + S” didn’t bring anything up for me, so here is what I did:
1. Go to the Format tab drop-down menu in Word, and click Styles and Formatting.
2. Go to Balloon text, and click Modify on the drop-down menu.
3. Change your font size as needed. Mine was originally set to “1″ (!), and I changed it to 10.
Hope this helps someone working in an earlier version of Word. Now on to the fix for comment boxes reading right to left!
Lisa
Lisa Neff Editorial Services
Liz at Libro
July 21, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Thanks for that, Lisa. With your permission, I will add that to the post. I don’t have a copy of Word 2003 any more, so it’s useful to have this information. Also, I wrote this post as a quick reminder to myself, and this serves as reminder to beef it up with some screenshots, like my later posts in the series.
Caroline McLaughlin (@CaroMcL)
September 12, 2012 at 10:51 am
Thanks very much Liz. I had the same problem once and followed your instructions all the way to the style menu, where unfortunately I had a frustrating five minutes playing around with the ‘Comments text’. I’d never even noticed there was a separate style for balloons!
Liz at Libro
September 12, 2012 at 10:54 am
I’m glad I could help – I do mention that it’s Balloon Text you need, but I’ll see if I can make that more prominent! I know it’s a bit odd, as why would you want them separate, but that’s the joy of Word!
Rebekah
September 21, 2012 at 12:14 am
This was a big help – saved me a lot of time! I’m glad I thought to google this problem before I spent too long trying to trouble-shoot, because I never would have figured that solution out on my own! I appreciated the screen shots as well.
Liz at Libro
September 21, 2012 at 5:17 am
Thanks for taking the time to comment and I’m glad I could help!
Sarah
October 5, 2012 at 2:19 am
Thanks so much for this. As a teacher I use the comment feature A LOT and the tiny text was driving me nuts. I once spent a good few hours trying to create and test a macro to fix this.
Liz at Libro
October 5, 2012 at 2:56 am
Thanks for taking the time to let me know this has been helpful for you!
Thomas
October 10, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Has worked for me — thanks a lot
Liz at Libro
October 10, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Thanks for your feedback and glad I could help!
mzee
October 22, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for this…This was soooooo very helpful….and saved my time….
Liz at Libro
October 22, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Always glad to help!
Michelle Wilson
October 24, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Thanks so much…saved me a lot of time – I would have never worked this out on my own – very helpful step by step guide!
Liz at Libro
October 24, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Thank you – glad I could help!
Michelle Wilson
October 24, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Thanks so much, very helpful and very straightforward guide to sort out a problem I would not have been able to figure out myself…it felt like Alice going down a rabbit hole, one table after another!
Liz at Libro
October 24, 2012 at 8:39 pm
So helpful you told me twice! Sorry for the slight delay in approving your comment …
Claire
October 31, 2012 at 8:42 am
Wonderful instructions! You saved my day!
Liz at Libro
October 31, 2012 at 9:07 am
Glad to help – thanks for letting me know!
Sudhir
November 6, 2012 at 8:56 pm
I don’t know how many human hours you’ve saved so far but certainly for me you saved many hours of panic and anxiety. Thanks a lot.
Liz at Libro
November 6, 2012 at 9:00 pm
You’re welcome; glad to help and thanks for dropping by to say thank you!
Claire
November 10, 2012 at 4:50 am
Thank you so much, this hasn’t quite saved my life, but definitely saved me time and angst!
Liz at Libro
November 10, 2012 at 7:14 am
Thanks for taking the time to comment and glad I could help!
Diana Blackstone-Helt
November 11, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Thank you! When I encountered this problem, I was the middle of editing my students’ papers to give them some advice before they submit them to me for a grade, and without having the comments readable, my task would have taken hours longer!
Liz at Libro
November 12, 2012 at 9:41 am
What a relief – so glad I could help you (and your students!). Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment!
Sarah
November 12, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Thank you Liz, this was driving me mad !!
Liz at Libro
November 12, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Glad I could help and thanks for posting a comment!
Lucy K
November 13, 2012 at 6:38 pm
brilliant! I would never have found that without your help!
Liz at Libro
November 13, 2012 at 8:43 pm
I’m glad I could help; thank you for posting a comment!
Andrei V
November 26, 2012 at 10:39 pm
This solution came in very handy today at work. It was exactly as you described. Thank you very much and may God bless you.
Liz at Libro
November 27, 2012 at 6:58 am
Thank you for your kind comment, Andrei – so glad I could help!
db
November 27, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Thank you very much, I had no idea how to solve this until I read your link. I really appreciate the help!
http://positionproseo.com
November 29, 2012 at 6:34 pm
When I originally left a comment I seem to have clicked on the -Notify me when new
comments are added- checkbox and from now on every time a comment is added I recieve 4 emails with the same comment.
Is there a means you can remove me from that service?
Thank you!
Liz at Libro
November 29, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Hi there, I’m afraid I can’t remove that myself for you. But at the bottom of the notification email you should have a link to manage notifications or some such message. Click there and you get a list of your notifications, which you can then untick to remove notifications on new comments on this and any other comment threads or, indeed, blogs, if you have signed up for emails from any. Hope that helps!
Karen Roberts Fong (@sg_writers_tips)
December 5, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Thanks so much for the steps. It Works!
Liz at Libro
December 11, 2012 at 7:56 am
Thanks – glad I could help!
Mark
December 10, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Thank you so much for this!
Liz at Libro
December 11, 2012 at 7:56 am
You’re welcome – glad I was able to help!
Brian Helmlinger
January 3, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Thank you. Great fix. Works just as it’s supposed to.
Liz at Libro
January 3, 2013 at 2:10 pm
Thank you for taking the time to comment and glad I could help!
Pam
January 14, 2013 at 8:43 pm
Thank you so much for posting this helpful fix! saved my life!!
Liz at Libro
January 14, 2013 at 8:46 pm
Thank you for taking the time to comment, Pam – I’m glad I could help!
Greg
February 8, 2013 at 8:36 am
Thank you very much for sharing the solution! This has been bothering me for ages…
By the way, a hint to other german-speaking persons maybe read this: in german it is called “Sprechblasentext”
Liz at Libro
February 8, 2013 at 8:47 am
Thank you for your comment, and I’m glad to have been able to help you!
Clare
February 20, 2013 at 8:01 pm
THANK YOU SO MUCH LIZ!
Liz at Libro
February 20, 2013 at 10:15 pm
You’re welcome!
daeghrafen
February 22, 2013 at 1:46 pm
Joining the crowds of thankers, here.
Thank you so much, this is just what I needed! Saved me a LOT of fiddling around in Word!
Liz at Libro
February 22, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Thanks for taking a moment to say thank you – it’s great to know I’m helping so many people!
Katherine
March 5, 2013 at 5:15 pm
Thank you so much!
Umair Khalid
April 5, 2013 at 5:44 am
Thank you very much Liz!
Liz at Libro
April 5, 2013 at 5:46 am
You’re welcome – I’m always glad to help and it’s lovely to hear back from people who I have helped!
Hannah Quigan
April 8, 2013 at 10:39 pm
So helpful! Saved me and my boss lots of stress. Thank you so much Liz.
Liz at Libro
April 9, 2013 at 5:28 am
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, Hannah, and so glad I could help!
V
April 18, 2013 at 10:22 pm
Thanks a ton. this was a life savior for me.
Liz at Libro
April 18, 2013 at 10:35 pm
You’re welcome – glad I could help!
Laura
May 3, 2013 at 10:48 am
This has just helped me sort out comment boxes that were spreading all across the page (making them equally unreadable) – I would never have found the right part of Word to adjust this in without having read this. Thank you!
Liz at Libro
May 3, 2013 at 11:16 am
Ah, yes – the cousin of this piece “What to do if your comment boxes go HUGE in Word …”. I should add that to the index, actually!
Kirsten Olsen
May 6, 2013 at 6:49 am
Thank you for this guide! It saved my morning an tons of time
Liz at Libro
May 6, 2013 at 6:53 am
You’re welcome – thanks for letting me know it helped!
Roughana
May 7, 2013 at 3:17 am
Thanks very much for documenting this. It solved my problem.
Liz at Libro
May 7, 2013 at 5:17 am
You’re welcome – glad I could help!